Into the city and the first reading there since 2007. No nerves, this is Brooklyn. A day or two to settle. Strung on little sleep but feeling good. My friends started rolling in the door while I sat with the other readers eating a hearty (and free) meal in back of the restaurant. MP the painter, Frances the poet and art critic, Karl the source, Jen the dancer, Todd the poet and runner, Regis the travel writer, Chris and Mary the engaged poets...

Carley read first and started with some new work she was unsure about. Then into poems about raising a daughter. Sex education. Wry.

I followed, reading a bit short, but feeling comfortable and feeling like the whole thing came off. I mentioned the Tibor de Nagy show I had seen earlier in the day, which raised a chorus of "ooh, yeaaah"s from those who had seen it. Quoted O'Hara writing to Larry Rivers about art as theft.

Tracy wrapped up the night reading from her forthcoming book "Life on Mars" - where the poems ranged from her father's work on the Hubble telescope project to the dark sides of human nature we see in today's media (think: that guy in Austria who kept his daughter and their offspring in the basement). Super tight work.

Afterward we hung around until midnight, then Chris and I headed back to his place to sip whiskey and talk a mile a minute and listen to Ian Svenonious records until after three. I slept in my clothes, then rose to take a train out to Long Island to have a three hour long lunch with Carlen.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

First, Egypt. Now Libya, Bahrain, Iran. Up here in Northern Europe you don't see much evidence on the daily from the revolutions underway. They're TV images, headlines, blog postings, running headlines at the bottom of the screen. Gaddafi getting out of a car under an umbrella. Mubarak's henchman in hallway, trying to look dignified under the bright glare of lights as he announces defeat. A limp corpse being carried out from behind a car in Libya.

A new world order is opening up. I am searching for its signs in orderly, methodical Deutschland, which requires creativity. My friend's father, who's a pastor, told her about John the Baptist wandering the desert, calling out "Repent!" to those he met. The pastor says "repent" is only one way to translate the word from the original Greek text, and a moralistic one. The word has an additional, more literal meaning: Revolve. Turn yourself around. Auf deutsch, sich umdrehen. Yourself aroundturn.

Crocuses are popping up, though it's 8 degrees out and webs of frost shade the office windows.
A favorite Kassel couple is heading out to Berlin, moving in together for the first time.
A dancer who's always had the next job lined up has decided not to take the next secure one when he's offered it, and instead to float, to wait, to see.
Instead of splitting immediately, they are trying to work it out. Neither of them has done this before.
Staying put instead of leaving. Not doing instead of doing.
A new tattoo.
New stem cells.
Marriage.
And all the babies born since 2011. Daniel, Emily, Meadow, Charlotte. Am I forgetting someone? The next one - the niece, or nephew - any day now.